Monday, June 14, 2010

39 pounds!

At just three weeks old, Copper weighs in at 39 pounds! I haven't yet compared this to his siblings, but I do know this is huge. He was born at around 21 pounds, so this means he's gained 18 pounds in 21 days, that's almost a pound a day. The goal is 1/2 to 1 pound a day, so Copper is at the top end of that. Sancha must have some really incredible milk. For weaning, many farms use 6 months old and 60 pounds as the time to wean. Copper will have no problem getting to 60 pounds by 6 months old.

Here's Copper:

And here is Copper with his mom, Sancha:

As you can see, he does not look like his mom. He actually looks a lot like his sire (dad). I'll get a picture of him later to show the resemblance.

You might notice something on him. It's a hernia belt:

Sometimes cria have an umbilical hernia. This belt has a hard firm part that goes over the hernia, and helps push it back into their abdominal cavity. Both Tehya and Shelby had umbilical hernia, and we found the hernia belt worked like a charm. Unfortunately, Copper is so big, the belt hardly fits him. I hope it fixes fast or he slows down in growing.

3 comments:

Wow....what a chunker! He is very cute! I thought our little girl Happy was huge at 34 lbs at 4 weeks old! Our little bottle baby Alchemy is only 24.5 lbs at 4 weeks old....Happy looks huge next to him.

Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC, & Oak Haven Sheep, LLC

The Adventure of a Lifetime

Our farming adventure began with the purchase of 3 alpacas in the fall of 2007. This eventually grew to an alpaca farm that birthed 23 cria. While we averaged 20 alpacas on a farm at any given time, we hit a peek of over 30 alpacas. We were involved in every aspect of alpaca farming: from breeding decisions, birthing, to attending alpaca shows, and shearing our own alpacas along with making product from their luscious fiber (hand spinning yarn and knitting product). We participated in 24 alpaca shows, and became very involved in the alpaca community.

In 2013 we added hair sheep to our farm.

Throughout this process we continued to tweak and revise our business plan. Our business plan evolved over time, and in 2013 it became clear that our goal was to raise grass fed animals for human consumption. While the initial plan was for this to go along side of alpaca farming, we slowly came to the conclusion our adventure was going to take us somewhere else.

In 2013 we began to sell off our alpaca herd to begin our new adventure with grass fed sheep and cattle.

Our adventure is still unfolding, so please, join us in our adventure of a lifetime as our journey unfolds.